mislabel

Mislabel (verb) means to assign a label to something that is inaccurate or inappropriate. The noun form is mislabeling or mislabelling, referring to the act or the result of labeling incorrectly.

Mislabeling can occur in many contexts, including consumer products, healthcare, laboratories, and data annotation.

In consumer products, mislabeling may involve incorrect nutritional information, allergen declarations, country of origin, or expiration dates. In medicine and diagnostics, wrong labels on vials, bags, or test results can lead to patient harm. In laboratories and biology, mislabeled samples or specimens can invalidate experiments or misdirect diagnoses.

In data science, mislabeled training data reduces model performance and can bias outcomes.

Causes include human error, language translation issues, miscommunication, rushed production, similar packaging, counterfeit goods, and system glitches.

Prevention and response involve standardized labeling protocols, independent verification, double-checking critical labels, barcodes or RFID, traceability, up-to-date labeling, audits, and clear recall procedures.

See also mislabelling, labeling error, data labeling.